Yes, all contact points with the playing surface must only be touching the tee pad when the disc is released. In theory, you can have contact with stationary items above the ground behind the pad or touch items above the ground in front of your lie on your follow through but hopefully no tee pad has items above ground that close to the tee pad.

This doesn't make sense to me because it would seem like the front of the teebox would constitute a "lie". In my mind this would mean that as long as your leading contact point is touching that surface. So why couldn't you have one foot off the edge of the box? Much like a straddle putt stance.

Because the tee pad area itself is already much larger than where you can have your contact points when taking a stance in the fairway. It's also a hole design issue where the designer has specifically indicated the options where you can locate your contact points upon releasing your throw.

That seems totally asinine to me. I could so easily screw with many, MANY teepads to completely change the shot for any groups behind me just by changing the direction of the mat (assuming not a hard tee). Not to mention I could completely screw with players if I designed my own course with tees that only had 3 bricks for them to step on in their run up. This really seems like an oversight on the rules committee to me, there's so much potential to abuse this. Perhaps you could argue the same if you allowed throwers to have a stance with an appendage outside of the tee but I can't picture a really negative situation out of that.

I disagree with you Jeronimo. It would be assinine for you to screw with the group behind you. You could move the teepad around but why would you want to? I could understand a provision to the rule where an adjacent area could be used if the tee had some sort of safety hazard (ice during the winter or mud/puddles on a dirt tee).

The teepad was designed for you to throw from, not next to. Why would someone want to design a course with the intent to screw with the players? This isn't an oversight at all. It is a logical rule.

I do respect where you are coming from, I am pretty sure I have seen pros break this rule without penalty. There are ways around it, a lot of people release the disc after their rear foot lifts off the ground, in which case you would be within the rules as the front foot would be the only point of contact upon release.

Stringbean wrote: There are ways around it, a lot of people release the disc after their rear foot lifts off the ground, in which case you would be within the rules as the front foot would be the only point of contact upon release.

That is a good point.

I just frequently play on courses where the tee's are nothing more than a 6'x4' rubber mat laying on the grass. I've seen them get moved around just from people stepping on them and then from the next league group coming up to the tee and "fixing" it. I guess I'm just frustrated that I can't put my lead foot on the tee box with my push off foot slightly off to the side so I can get a better angle on a stand still tee off.